Meeting with Chairman of State Customs Committee Yuri Senko

The performance of the Belarusian customs service in 2017 and short-term
development prospects were discussed at the working meeting of Belarus
President Alexander Lukashenko and Chairman of the State Customs Committee Yuri
Senko on 22 September.

One of the matters discussed during the working meeting was the
generation of revenues for the budget in the areas of responsibility of the
State Customs Committee. Alexander Lukashenko enquired about the statistics on
the movement of goods, vehicles, and people across the border. “I hear some
unbelievable numbers again. The traffic of goods and people soared by a third. How
does it benefit us?” the Belarusian leader asked.

According to Yuri Senko, the State Customs Committee fully meets the
target set forth for the revenue collection. He clarified that this is about
the estimated numbers based on the statistics on the economics and business and
on the projections. When compared with the same period last year, the amount of
payments to the budget increased by almost $250 million due to effective work,
intensified export-import operations and transit via Belarus.

During the meeting the head of state said: “In order to rule out
complaints about large queues at the border, are we improving border control
procedures for the sake of faster passage of commodities, natural persons, and
vehicles? Tell me about the state of affairs.”

Yuri Senko said that they had been able to shave off some time by
automating certain processes and introducing digital declarations. The new
technology has expedited data sharing, data processing, and decision making. In
2018 they will be able to improve the infrastructure of border checkpoints in
the abovementioned directions and secure larger throughput. The Latvian
direction is very important from the point of view of the ice hockey world
championship that Belarus
and Latvia
will host in 2021 and the Second European Games Belarus will host in 2019. Naturally
the committee expects an increase in passenger traffic. This is why the customs
service should be ready to handle all the traffic in this direction.

The working meeting also focused on the efforts to prevent the
transportation of forbidden goods though the Belarusian border. “Let’s speak
about the transportation of extremely hazardous products, for example,
psychotropic substances, drugs, weapons, radioactive substances. How do we
cooperate with our western partners in this field?” the Belarusian leader
asked.

According to Yuri Senko, this year the Belarusian customs service has
thwarted 50 attempts to move drugs through the state border in the direction of
Belarus and Russia.

The participants of the working meetings also discussed the enforcement
of the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) on 1 January 2018. Yuri
Senko gave the Belarusian President the first copy of the Customs Code of the
EAEU. The document comprises all the international agreements of the five
member states, and also a number of novelties that take into account the
present-day economic needs.

Alexander Lukashenko asked what has already been done for the
implementation of the document. “To what extent does this Customs Code
correspond to the current realities? When it was in the works, certain
compromises were made, of course,” the head of state said.

“In fact we already operate under the new document. Many of the
novelties laid down in the new Customs Code have already been tested in Belarus. On 1
January 2018 the document will become our main guideline. We took into account
the needs of our ministries and agencies responsible for the country’s economic
performance, the interests of business associations who also took part in the
development of the document. Some issues, however, have been left for domestic
regulation,” Yuri Senko said.

No extraordinary situation is expected as the Customs Code of the
Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) takes effect on 1 January 2018 because all the
preparations were made in advance.